Classic fictionBraille
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Booklist
Austen, Jane
Emma. 1816. 6v.
Emma Wodehouse has led a simple life, but during the course of this novel she at last reaps her share of the world's vexations. In this comedy of manners, the heroine learns to come to terms with the reality of other people, and with her own erring nature.
Bennett, Arnold
Anna of the Five Towns. 1896. 5v.
Anna is one of Bennett's "modern" heroines: brought up in a typical Potteries' town with its prayer meetings and rent collecting, stark Sunday schools and dark interiors, by a father who is a miser as well as a tyrant. Gradually her spirit expands until - at last - she manages to defy him. Almost a character in its own right, the community in which they live is shown as gossipy, myopic and uncaring.
Blackmore, R.D.
Lorna Doone. 1869. 7v.
Set in the times of Charles II and James II, this is the story of John Ridd, an Exmoor yeoman, and his revenge for the murder of his father by the Doones. His love for Lorna complicates the issue until it is discovered that she is the daughter of a Scottish noble, so that the impediment to the marriage becomes one of social situation. This is soon overcome by her fidelity and by his services to an old kinsman of Lorna and to the king.
Brontë, Charlotte
Jane Eyre. 1847. 7v.
A story of passionate love, travail and final triumph. The relationship between the heroine and Mr Rochester is only one episode, albeit the most important, in a detailed fictional autobiography in which the author transmuted her own experience into high art.
Brontë, Emily
WutheringHeights. 1847. 5v.
Emily Brontë records the story of the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and the wild Heathcliff with such truth, imagination and emotional intensity that a plain tale of the Yorkshire moors acquires the depth and simplicity of ancient tragedy.
Bunyan, John
The pilgrim's progress. 1678. 3v.
One of the greatest allegorical stories ever written, this recounts the story of Christian's journey to Heaven through the trials and tribulations of life.
Chandler, Raymond
The big sleep. 1939. 5v.
This is the first of the Philip Marlowe novels. Called in to deal with a blackmailer, Marlowe follows a trail littered with murder and deception. The story evokes the essence of Southern California in the 30s and the reading adds to the deadly but romantic image of the strange Sherwood family.
Chesterton, G. K.
The man who was Thursday. 1907. 3v.
This tale describes, in sometimes a hilarious but often chilling way, the activities of anarchists dedicated to the destruction of world order.
Cleland, John
Fanny Hill or memoirs of a woman of pleasure. 1748. 7v.
"Fanny Hill" is one of the most famous erotic novels in English, first appeared in 1748-9. Recounted with a lively use of metaphor and some curiously moral asides, it tells of Fanny Hill's boisterous education as a London prostitute. This is the first critical edition of the novel, and the first to present a wholly unexpurgated text.
Collins, Wilkie
The woman in white. 1860. 11v.
The narrative, related in succession by Walter Hartright and other characters in the story, starts with his midnight encounter on a lonely road with a mysterious and agitated woman dressed entirely in white, whom he helps to escape from pursuers.
Conrad, Joseph
The secret agent. 1907. 4v.
An anarchist bomb plot fails through a woman's protective love for her simple-minded young brother.
Cooper, James Fenimore
The last of the mohicans. 1826. 6v.
Hawkeye lives apart from other white men, sharing the solitude and sublimity of the wilderness with his Mohican Indian friend, Chingachgook. But the savageries of the French and Indian war force them out of exile, and they agree to guide two sisters in search of their father through hostile Indian country.
Defoe, Daniel
Moll Flanders. 1722. 4v.
Born in Newgate prison and abandoned, Moll's drive to find a secure place in society propels her through incest, adultery, bigamy, prostitution and a career as a theief before she is apprehended and returned to Newgate. Moll is an embodiment of the virtues and vices of her eighteenth-century contemporaries.
Dickens, Charles
Oliver Twist. 1838. 6v.
The famous story of the workhouse boy and his adventures with Fagin, Bill Sykes, the Artful Dodger, and many other well-known characters, showing many of the social evils of the 19th century.
Du Maurier, Daphne
Rebecca. 1938. 9v.
A young and innocent girl comes to Cornwall as the second wife of Max de Winter. Out of her depth in the social grandeur, she fears the formidable housekeeper, Mrs Danvers, and grows aware of a mystery surrounding the death of the first Mrs de Winter.
Dumas, Alexandre
The three musketeers. 1884. 8v.
The classic historical adventure novel, set in the 1620s at the court of Louis XIII, where the musketeers are engaged in a battle against Richelieu, the King's minister, and a beautiful, unscrupulous spy.
Eliot, George
Adam Bede. 1859. 7v.
Adam Bede loves Hetty Sorel, who is seduced by the young squire, convicted of the murder of her child, and transported. He finds ultimate happiness with Dinah Morris, a young Methodist preacher.
Ellison, Ralph
The invisible man. 1952. 5v.
This novel takes its wide-eyed hero from innocence to experience through inns and bedrooms from Somerset to London and back, while at the same time continuing a farcical debate about the true nature of the novelist's art.
Faulkner, William
As I lay dying. 1935. 3v.
Successive episodes in the death and burial of Addie Bundren are recounted by various members of the family circle, principally as they are carting their mother's coffin to Jefferson, Mississippi, in order to bury her among her people.
Fielding, Henry
Tom Jones. 1749. 13v.
This classic novel describes a young black man's search for his identity, from his youth in a Southern town to the depression years in Harlem, where he examines and rejects the values thrust on him by both whites and blacks.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
The great Gatsby. 1925. 4v.
Everybody who is anybody is seen at Gatsby's glittering parties. None of the socialites understand Gatsby. He seems to always be watching and waiting, though no-one knows what for. But as the tragic story unfolds, Gatsby's destructive dreams and passions are revealed.
Flaubert, Gustave
Madame Bovary. 1857. 8v.
Emma Rouault leaves her father to marry Charles Bovary and live among the bourgeoisie of Yonville. She fills her head with notions of gallantry and high romance, which she finds in a tempestuous love affair with the local squire. A great classic of French literature.
Ford, Ford Maddox
The good soldier: a tale of passion. 1915. 5v.
Edward Ashburnham is a first-rate soldier and a perfect English gentleman, a man whose single (fatal) flaw is his ruthlessness in affairs of love. Our only window on the strange tangle of events surrounding Ashburnham is provided by his friend, the husband he deceives. Ford's narrator entrusts us with everything he can remember, and these memories weave themselves into one of the most extraordinary tales of passion and betrayal ever told.
Forster, E.M.
The room with a view. 1908. 5v.
The love of a young British woman named Lucy Honeychurch for a British expatriate living in Italy is condemned by her stuffy, middle-class guardians, who prefer an eligible man of their own choosing.
Fowles, John
The French lieutenant's woman. 1969. 6v.
From the god-like stance of the nineteenth-century novelist that he both assumes and gently mocks, to the last detail of dress, idiom and manners, this is an immaculate recreation of Victorian England. Not only is it the epic love story of two people of insight and imagination seeking escape from the cant and tyranny of their age, but also a brilliantly sustained allegory of the decline of the twentieth-century passion for freedom.
Gaskell, Elizabeth
Cranford. 1853. 2v.
A quietly humorous study of village life and Victorian ladies, tea parties and gossip.
Golding, William
The lord of the flies. 1954. 4v.
A group of boys are stranded on a desert island after a plane crash. They realize they must work together to survive. However, it is not long before their latent animal savagery erupts, shattering the thin veneer of civilization.
Graves, Robert
I, Claudius. 1934. 9v.
A biographical novel about Claudius, covering the years from 10 BC to 41 AD when he was unwillingly made Emperor.
Greene, Graham
The third man. 1950. 2v.
Rollo Martins is invited to Vienna by his school friend Harry Lime, but he arrives just in time to attend Lime's funeral. Rollo is determined to find out the truth behind Harry's death, and in doing so he discovers that his hero was involved in one of the dirtiest rackets going in post- war Vienna.
Hardy, Thomas
Jude the obscure. 1895. 6v.
A tale of doomed love and unfulfilled promise that revolves around Jude Fawley, an ambitious and intelligent young man, his cousin Sue Bridehead and his academic mentor Phillotson.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
The scarlet letter. 1850. 6v.
A settler in New England, Hester Prynne has waited two years for her husband, an ageing English scholar, to join her. He arrives to find her in the pillory, a small baby in her arms. She must, as a punishment for her adultery, wear a scarlet 'A' embroidered on her breast. Keeping secret the identity of both her husband and her lover, Hester slowly wins respect by her charitable acts. Her strength, and the moral cowardice of the man who allows her to face guilt and shame alone, are brought into sharp contrast in a dramatic and harrowing conclusion.
Heller, Joseph
Catch 22. 1961. 14v.
Depicts the struggles of a United States airman attempting to survive the lunacy and depravity of a World War II airbase.
Hemingway, Ernest
For whom the bell tolls. 1940. 11v.
This tragic epic novel is set against the background of the Spanish Civil War. The action takes place during three days in the early summer of 1937 and graphically portrays the savagery and heroism of the war, and the harshness and beauty of the Spanish landscape. It is the story of Robert Jordan, a young American saboteur who gives his life to the Loyalist cause.
Hugo, Victor
Les miserables. 1862. 3v.
Out of extreme poverty Jean Valjean steals a loaf of bread and then spends many years trying to escape his reputation as a criminal.
James, Henry
The portrait of a lady. 1881. 11v.
Isabel Archer cherishes her independence and so refuses the proposals of two eligible bachelors. It is only when she meets the elusive and charming Osmond that she is presented with a difficult choice.
Jerome, Jerome K.
Three men in a boat. 1889. 2v.
Suffering from every malady in the book, three men and a dog decide to head for a restful vacation on the Thames. They encounter the joys of roughing it, of getting their boat stuck in locks, of having to eat their own cooking, and of course, the glorious English weather.
Joyce, James
Dubliners. 1914. 2v.
A sequence of stories depicting middle-class Catholic life in Dublin. The frustrations of childhood, disappointments of adolescence and mystery of sexual awakening are related with clarity and sensitivity.
Lawrence, D.H.
The rainbow. 1915. 14v.
A chronicle of three generations of Brangwens, a family of farming stock, against a background of the countryside and the industrial city.
Lessing, Doris
The golden notebook. 1962. 13v.
Anna Wulf is a young novelist with writer's block. Divorced, with a young child, and disillusioned by unsatisfactory relationships, she feels her life is falling apart. Fearing the onset of madness, she records her experiences in four coloured notebooks. The black notebook addresses her problems as a writer; the red her political life; the yellow her relationships and emotions; and the blue becomes a diary of everyday events. But it is the fifth notebook - the Golden Notebook - which is the key to her recovery and renaissance.
Lewis, Matthew
The monk. 1796. 9v.
Matthew "Monk" Lewis published "The monk" in 1796 when he was only 21. The novel follows the diabolical decline of Ambrosio, a worthy Capuchin superior, who, tempted by Matilda, a young girl who has entered his monastery dressed as a boy, succumbs to murder, magic, incest and torture.
Márquez, Gabriel García
Love in the time of cholera; translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman. 1985. 9v.
When Dr. Juvenal Urbino died, aged eighty-one-and-a-half, his widow, the once breath-taking Fermina Daza, instinctively recoiled from the one hand extended to steady and comfort her. A hand which for her long life had always been within reach but which, in her haughtiness and guilt, she would not acknowledge: the hand of Florentino Ariza.
Melville, Hermann
Moby-Dick. 1851. 11v.
A young seaman joins the crew of the fanatical Captain Ahab in pursuit of the white whale Moby Dick.
Orwell, George
1984. 1949. 6v.
This novel is a satire on the horrors of totalitarianism. The book is set in a society run by Big Brother where people are made to conform to orthodoxy by the Thought Police. Winston Smith yearns for truth and liberty, but he comes to realize that he cannot outwit the forces at work.
Poe, Edgar Allan
Tales of mystery and imagination. 1842. 3v.
Ten of Poe's best mysteries, including 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' and 'The Pit Pendulum'.
Rhys, Jean
Wide Sargasso Sea. 1966. 3v.
The life of Rochester's first wife, the mad woman kept hidden at Thornfield Hall, who later haunted Jane Eyre.
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein, or, The modern prometheus. 1818. 6v.
Mary Shelley's nightmare vision has haunted generations of readers and inspired innumerable literary imitations and film versions. Here is the original story of the brilliant scientist whose magnificent obsession not only destroys himself and everyone he loves, but threatens the entire human race.
Steinbeck, John
The pearl. 1947. 2v.
In this old Mexican folk story, a great pearl changes the simple life of Kino and his family forever. For, despite the promise of its lustrous beauty it brings him only enemies, misfortune and grief.
Stendhal
Scarlet and black. 1831. 9v.
The story of an ambitious carpenter's son in early 19th-century France and of his life torn between the military (the scarlet) and the church (the black).
Sterne, Laurence
Tristram Shandy. 1759. 13v.
Beginning with an account of his own conception (because his father had forgotten to wind the clock!) this parson-turned-writer uses the story of his birth and early years as a vehicle for many bizarre and hilarious digressions. These include - amongst others - his Uncle Toby, nursing his 'wound in the groin" and playing war games with Tristam's father and Dr. Slop whose delivery technique gave the author a birthday present of a bent nose.
Stoker, Bram
Dracula. 1897. 9v.
Jonathan Harker's fearful experience at Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania marks the beginning of a chain of unspeakable horrors, as the vile Count claims innocent victims to join his diabolical world of the un-dead. Only Doctor Van Helsing has the key to salvation...
Thackeray, William
Vanity Fair. 1847. 12v.
A story of English society during the Napoleonic wars, in which Thackeray chronicles the exploits of Becky Sharp, an unscrupulous young woman who is determined to achieve wealth and social success.
Tolstoy, Leo
Anna Karenina. 1877. 22v.
The story of an aristocratic woman who brings ruin on herself, Anna Karenina is not only about Anna's tragedy, but about marriage and relationships and families, suffused by Tolstoy's moral vision.
Trollope, Anthony
BarchesterTowers. 1857. 7v.
Clerical feuds in Barchester centre round Mr. Slope, The Bishop's Chaplain, and Mrs. Proudie, the Bishop's wife.
Waugh, Evelyn
Brideshead revisited. 1945. 6v.
During the Second World War, Ryder finds himself billeted at the house which had belonged to his Oxford friend Sebastian, and remembers him, his family and their life.
Wells, H.G.
The time machine. 1895. 1v.
This novel tales the tale of the first time traveler who finds the future populated by the gentle Eloi and their dreaded cousins, the Morlocks, masters of the underworld.
Wilde, Oscar
The picture of Dorian Gray. 1891. 5v.
Wilde's only novel revolves around a spoilt hedonist who is willing to sell his soul for his beauty. His portrait bears the marks of age and debauchery while he retains the outward appearance of serenity and youth.